Severus Snape and the Chamber of Secrets
by the-anonymous-c
Summary: It is Severus's eleventh year teaching, and things are fishier than ever. The new defense against the dark arts teacher doesn't seem to know a single spell, Lucius Malfoy pops up everywhere and Potter-the-possibly-neurologically-damaged has gone haywire.
1. in which shopping is a hefty annoyance

It was a frighteningly blabla normal day, and Severus Snape might have been in a equally normal state of mind if it hadn't been for school on the horizon and the fact of shopping needing to get done as a direct scientific result. Severus was a teacher at some weird school he always forgot the name of, and if he were a soiled and dishonest old wheeze, he would lie about liking it. However, Severus wasn't a wheeze, whatever the hell that was, and so he figured he'd just as well go for the gold in this case, so to speak and always be very open about hating his job. He thought he was pretty successful there.

Other things Severus hated included but weren't limited to: ham sandwiches, late night staff parties, Potter-who-should-never-have-traipsed-into-Hogwarts-last-year, and Diagon Alley. The thing Severus hated most about Diagon Alley aside from the way people pushed him to get to so-not-worth-it ice cream stands, was that there were too many people in general. He had talked to them about having a body police on these god-forsaken streets, but some thugs had tried to steal his shopping bag and beat him up for that one. Severus hated thugs. He betted that was what all the extras in those pernicious streets were. Wait, didn't pernicious have to do with attitude?

It was an unseasonably cold day, so Severus spent a long time the morning he was fated to go shopping deciding what to wear and pretending that he had more than three sets of robes plus a burn one. He quit that activity when he realized that the radio alarm blaring in the background was giving him a migraine. Grabbing some double-strength Advil, he left the vicinity and stepped out onto the nippy street of Spinner's End only to realize he was still in his nightshirt.

When he finally reached thug-crowded Diagon Alley, there were more than the usual amount of filler people, which made Severus miffed right off the dumb bat. There couldn't possibly be that many people wanting to do their shopping in one day. For a moment, Severus spaced out on Eyelop's Owl Emporium, thinking of all the better things he could be doing at the moment, things that did not involve Diagon Alley. He stopped that activity abruptly when he realized he couldn't remember anything he'd done that summer aside from eat stale toast and canned peas, courtesy of his lean budget, and owl Dumbledore his application for the Defense job. He'd never gotten anything back, even though he'd sent a reminder owl every other week, not to seem desperate. He'd had to rent the reminder owls too, from some corny overpriced shady business that maxed out his credit card like whoa. Once they gave him a dud owl and then wouldn't let him return it for another; he'd decided to stop after that, and assume Dumbledore had died or fallen down a long set of stairs over the summer, or was ignoring him, which, being one of Dumbledore's favorite activities, seemed the most likely.

Keeping his head down, he pushed his way through the crowds until he got to the potion shop he always got his supplies from. Severus didn't know the name of it because the welcome witch outside stood there and smiled at him every time he tried to pause to read the sign, and it made him uncomfortable.

The bells on the inside of the door tinkled as Severus strode into the shop. Someone must have entered right behind him, because they tinkled again soon after, and he hurried out of the way to scan the shelves. In the end, Severus settled on getting doubles of all the basics, a.k.a. the ingredients first years were always spilling, plus some unreasonably pricy boomslang skin for sixth year advanced potions and a yak's foot, just because. He thought of buying a new gross thing in a jar for the shelves in his office, but this summer was making him destitute and he so didn't need the extra strain. The person checking him out at the cash register babbled to him about how they were having a deal on boomslang skin next week, which really rubbed Severus the wrong way, because they hadn't advertised it in the daily prophet and she'd already stuck his boomslang skin in a newly opened shopping bag, so he couldn't exactly take it out again and hold up the whole dumb line. Severus's credit card was rejected, so he had to dig around in his pockets for the last of his galleons, which just barely fit the bill, so to speak. He turned to leave and nearly walked directly into Lucius Malfoy.

"HELLO, Severus," Lucius boomed at him as though he were hearing impaired. Severus had long ago come to suspect that Lucius himself was hearing impaired, so he no longer took offense to his outrageous volume.

"Hello," Severus said shortly, giving Lucius a crisp smile that made his face hurt. He thought of running, but his bag was already leaving a mark on his arm and he didn't want to jostle it around; plus Lucius might get the wrong idea. He searched for some avenue of conversation, as Lucius was grinning at him expectantly.

"Where is…ah…Draco?"

"I'm so glad you asked that question, Severus," said Lucius barmily, shouldering an obnoxiously large bag that Severus had failed to notice earlier in the horror of the moment. "Draco is at home waiting for a little… surprise."

He winked, even though winks were typically reserved for another party who knew what the hell was going on, which Severus decidedly did not.

"All right," he said. "Well, Lucius, I must…"

"What you must do," Lucius trespassed, waving his arm so that it almost hit Severus in the face, "Is come to dinner with us! We have much to discuss!"

Severus very much doubted that. He was experiencing the strange sensation that his lungs were suddenly deprived of air, not an unusual experience in the presence of any one of the Malfoys.

"What are you doing in a potions shop?" Severus managed, trying to avert the invitation.

"Weeelllll," Lucius said, drawing out the word as though anyone gave a hoot about his answer. "I came in right behind you, actually. I was going to give you my greetings right away, but then I decided to wait and watch you shop. Sometimes I like to see how the poor make it through the day."

Severus stared at him.

"Ah."

"Come with me now!" Lucius said, turning in a flurry of emerald green robes which nearly hit Severus in the face again.

Severus found he had little choice.


	2. in which malfoy manor is a drag

**Disclaimer: none of the characters or the world belong to me, obviously. **

**Please review if you read ; )**

Severus followed Lucius around Diagon Alley for an hour, trying to ignore his shopping bag, which was slowly carving a cave into his arm, so to speak. Finally, when a witch pushing a stand brushed some pink ice cream up against his robe, he decided that enough was enough already.

"Do you mind telling me why we are not back at your place yet, Lucius?"

Lucius had stopped in the middle of Diagon Alley, almost causing Severus to run straight into his back. Severus noticed that he smelled curiously of bandaids and liquor. When Malfoy senior looked at him, Severus had to hold back a strangled hoot of laughter; Lucius looked like he was about to cry.

Lucius nodded once, which was so not a viable answer to Severus's question, and turned around again, walking faster and muttering something under his breath that sounded like he was gargling water more than actually forming words.

"Ah, here we—

"Got rid of Knockturn Alley!" Lucius bleated when they reached the Leaky Kettle, or whatever. Several people stared. Severus wondered if their respective mothers had ever told them that was not politically correct. He also wondered whether Lucius was blind as well as deaf, because Knockturn Alley was only a stone's throw away from them, distancially speaking. Was distancially a word? He'd suggested it to a student in a paper once, so he guessed that it was, or else why would it be in his tried and true vocab?

Sniffling like a wounded badger, Lucius threw himself repeatedly into the brick wall behind the Leaky Pot, or whatever. A spot of red began to show against his blond hair, and Severus began to be worried about medical papers. Stepping around Lucius in his ferocious lunging, he tapped some bricks with his wand, hoping it was the right combo. When nothing happened, Severus tried two more times before some busybody heavy-breathing witch cut them in line, tapped some odd combination and rudely pushed past them inside. Severus opened his mouth to give her a bit of his lip, then gave up the goat early in the game and followed her inside, mind hanging on the faint hope that Lucius was too incapacitated to follow immediately.

However, when Severus was almost to the door of the Leaky Frying Pan or whatever, he caught a glimpse of Lucius sitting on a stool barring his way. He was on his fifth firewhiskey and was grinning like a madman. Severus was vaguely disturbed.

"How…?"

"Come on, my man, let's drink a toast to our purchases in Knockturn Alley today!"

"We didn't go to Knockturn Alley," Severus mumbled, giving the expectant bartender a frosty glance, which he specialized in. Lucius thumped him on the back far too hard and then apologized for spilling his nonexistent drink.

By the time they left, Lucius had downed fourteen and one quarter firewhiskeys and winked suggestively at fifty women, fifty-one men, and a warlock, who grunted back. Severus sat sideways on his stool and thought about dark curses. At one point, Lucius tapped him on the shoulder, leaned over to tip a wink, then said something that sounded suspiciously like, "not drunk enough for that," and turned to a hag with a mustache on his right, who was eyeing him in a girlish way Severus felt should be illegal for hags.

Out on the street once more, Severus did all he could to make the best of this current bamboozlement, such as walking extremely fast, pretending he had to go back for something, pretending not to see a wayward Knight Bus, and finally, sprinting.

Lucius was like super glue or something equally malevolent in the end, because Malfoy Manor loomed up before them in no time. Severus thought there was something missing from the plot of this story, since how could he have walked all the way across several counties when he could apparate, but the narrator wasn't addressing it and his shopping bag was seriously killing his arm, so he figured it was a moot point. He must have caught secondhand drinking fever from Lucius, since he began to giggle at that phrase, and his companion glared over at him.

"Whhhhhatttt?"

"N-nothing," he managed. They stood in front of the gates to Lucius's disgusting ship of a house for five Mississippi's before Severus decided to address an important matter.

"Should we not…go inside, Lucius?"

He turned around to find Lucius taking a shortcut through the bushes. Approximately six billion burglar alarms went off, and Severus, in danger of having his ears fall off, sprinted for the house, grabbing Lucius, who was caught in a snare of bizarrely placed Christmas lights, as he went.

Severus just about died from exhaustion or that gross thing where your stomach sticks out the front of you because you've lifted an insane amount of weight. Both of his arms were numb when he deposited Lucius on the front staircase, and he pawed at the door weakly before Lucius solved the problem for them both by falling through the nearest window and setting off yet another burglar alarm.

Severus was about to suggest they have some recoup time, but it was no go.

"DEATH EATER ACTIVITIES!" Lucius bawled, scrambling around in the broken glass beneath them. Severus got a piece in his eye when he tried to get close enough to tell him to cut it out already. That was what you got for wandering too close to the breach, he figured.

"Father," said a voice that did not sound like Lucius, though Severus couldn't really hear over the burglar alarm, and his eye was becoming watery and bloody from the glass chip. From the way the new voice abused the short 'a' vowel sound, he guessed it must be the Pointy-Faced Brat, who didn't really add anything to any scene in most cases, but Severus guessed he was kind of glad to have a third party present, until he remembered that this particular third party was also his student, of the insufferable variety.

Were there any students that were not of the insufferable variety? He decided he would have a think on that one in exchange for not having to wear an eyepatch on the first day of school, a scenario of which he was fast becoming afraid.

"Draco!" Lucius hollered from the floor, thrashing about and spitting chunks of glass about like it was some sort of fiesta they were having here. Then Severus blacked out because Lucius's large ignoramus of a foot kicked him in the face just all out of the blue. When he woke up, he was on a couch that smelled like it had never left the furniture store. There were several broken glass chips laid out all around him.

"DON'T MOOOOOOVE," said a voice that was unmistakably Lucius. Severus opened the only eye that would open as far as it would go and found Lucius looking drunkenly agitated next to the Pointy-Faced Brat, whose face looked even more sickeningly triangle-shaped this year. The Pointy-Faced Brat was holding a camera, which Severus was pretty darn sure was a muggle invention, and snapping away with the thing with a fiendish delight. In the background, the television, which Severus knew was a muggle invention, was playing a wildly out-of-season Christmas special, which reminded Severus too keenly of the last time he was here.

"Draco has a school project," Lucius said.

Severus blinked, and then felt agonized. "Do you mind getting this shard of glass out of my eye?" he asked, not entirely successful in keeping the murderous edge out of his voice. He wondered if Lucius would ever realize that he was a professor and knew that all of Draco's school projects for the summer were fake.

"Dobby got the glass out for you," Lucius said over the sound of the Pointy-Faced Brat having a grossly delighted snickerfit.

"Dobby did, sir!" said a voice that Severus could only assume was coming from either the air conditioning ducts or under the couch.

"Dobby is in TIME OUT," Lucius said, going straight on up to max volume. The voice didn't speak again.

"It still feels like there is glass in there," Severus said, sitting up and brushing the glass from his lap. The Pointy-Faced Brat started to cry. Severus noticed that he was wearing pajamas with snowmen on them, and came to the conclusion that all of the calendars in this house must be out of whack.

"Dobby wanted to use antiseptic, sir—

"TIME OUT, DOBBY!" Lucius screamed, and the voice shut up again. Severus felt his eye. It throbbed. Feeling absurdly like a pirate, he stared around the room. Behind Lucius and Draco, who was bawling up a storm, there was a woman at the kitchen table in the next room. She looked passed out or dead, it was hard to tell which. It was then that he realized it was light outside.

"I must be going," he said, finding it hard to keep the excitement from his voice, "I need to pack for school tomorrow, and I know, er—Draco—must do the same. I would not want to inconvenience you."

Lucius waved a hand in front of his face. "Narcissa will pack you a duffel bag!" he said, gesturing to the prone form in the darkened kitchen, which neither confirmed nor denied this statement.

"Faaaaaaaather, show him my surpriiiiise," said the Pointy-Faced Brat, abusing yet another vowel in the process.

Lucius, grinning like a madman again, ran over to a hidden door marked "SECRET", and tore the thing open. Several broom-shaped packages thudded out onto the carpet.

"I decided," he began, which Severus was glad for, because he had no idea where the hell this was going. "To gift the Slytherin team with new Nimbus 2001s."

Severus only stared at him.

"Well. Ah… thank you," he said, after repressing the urge to faint from the pounding in his dead eye. It was hard to be political when you were a man down, so to speak.

"And I was thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii—

"Thinking," Severus said, rather too snappishly.

"Yes," Lucius said, pouting slightly at his ruined fun. Severus thought someone ought to stick his head in the closet and slam it a few times for good measure. The thought was juicy-good, and kept him from fainting. Instead, he leaned against a six foot painting of a person the Malfoys certainly didn't know. They bought them at tag sales whenever they could, to add the elitist touch every home needed.

"I was thiiiiiiiiinking…" Lucius began again, "That since I am rich enough to buy these brooms for you, the least you could do is make my sturdy son a seeker."

The Pointy-Faced Brat was grinning sickeningly again. He looked anything but sturdy. Severus noticed that his snowman pajamas were the footie type.

"Whatever," Severus said. He was beginning to see spots in front of his remaining eye.

"WONDERFUL!" Lucius screamed.

Severus left the house soon after. He'd had to make a getaway while Lucius was preoccupied with testing every single one of the Nimbus 2001's, to see if they "even flew". Once he got outside, he jogged in place for a second because he'd heard that helped, but whatever old wife had come up with that one was a total rip off because it only made him want to puke. Suddenly, Severus remembered that he'd left his shopping bag in the house, and he had to go back in to fetch it. He had almost made it back to the door again when Lucius stopped him with a load of laundry in his hands and whispered that he had the stomach flu. Severus chose the no comment option.

When he stood in the beaming sun again, he rifled through his bag, only to find that his yak's foot was clean gone. He suspected the woman who had awkwardly tried to flirt with him back at the Leaky Engine or whatever while crouching like she was going to take either a seat or a shit at any moment. Severus had known it was fishy from the getgo since she was clearly out of his league, despite her unibrow and double-clubfoot.

Squinting against the sun, Severus guessed it was good it wasn't his boomslang skin, but when that didn't help to get the edge off of his case of the cranks, he resorted to making a dark mark in the sky. A police car pulled up beside him, and Severus quick erased it and apparated.


	3. packing

Severus seriously wondered why this was a chapter. Contrary to what he had informed Lucius, he actually had little to no packing to do. He stuffed his three sets of robes and one nightshirt into a suitcase and was in the process of zipping it shut when he threw up all over everything, effectively ending that task.

Severus went to the bathroom for some Pepto Bismol before finding out that he had run out of the original kind and all he had left was some light purple colored stuff that he seriously doubted was any good. It had a one day warranty and smelled of mothballs when he took off the lid. Severus's throat made a _hurk_ sound, so he chugged the stuff in a cold panic and then fell on the floor, feeling lyme-diseased. just like a couple of summers ago when Severus did, in fact, contract lyme disease while retrieving a piece of mail from where it had been chucked in the woods beyond his house by the half-blind postage man. The woods beyond his house was only a few scraggly, pollution deadened trees. Severus had never figured that one out. The point was that he hadn't woken up for days that time, which he so couldn't afford now.

With the incentive of not passing out for days on his mind, Severus found an antiseptic potion and strategically applied it to his eye. First he tried cotton balls, but unfortunately, he was a blinker and got too frustrated after being unable to get the job done for the thousandth time. When his hand started having random spasms, he dropped the sodden cotton ball on the floor and had to take a break to breath heavily and swear before going onward. Luckily, the second one did the trick.

For the next two hours, Severus walked around his house with a cotton ball full of healing potion taped over his eye, pretending he was a wounded unit and might not make it through the winter. Occasionally, he found something else to pack and stuffed it into his dilapidated bag, which sagged sadly and now smelled faintly of vomit.

It was about lunchtime by the time Severus ran out of things to pack, but all he had was a expired can of peas with a leak and a hard biscuit. His stomach felt much too queasy anyhow, so he settled for peeling the cotton ball off of his eye to test the healing process. Much to Severus's delight, he was able to see some slightly blurry shapes that he guessed were furniture pieces, even though he technically had no furniture in his kitchen. He decided to skip the eyepatch part of the healing process, and let his eye air out. It no longer hurt, but he bumped into chairs three times and had to grab an owl to keep from falling on the third.

Wait…Severus stared at the owl in his hand out of his good non-blind eye. Seeing as he didn't own an owl of his own, he was pretty sure it hadn't been in his house until recently, although it was possible that he had been mistaking it for a fruit dish until recently. The owl was going through the process known to man as asphyxiation, which Severus only noticed when it screamed weakly. He let it go and took the letter attached to its leg, which was now crumpled to the max.

_Severus, _the letter read.

That's my name, don't wear it out, Severus thought dumbly, giving a hoarse chuckle before moving to the next line, which was far too clumped together for his bum eye to handle. He recognized the handwriting immediately, however: Dumbledore. Pretending he had dyslexia, Severus read the rest of the crumpled parchment.

_Hopefully you are coming back to school this year, if you know what's good for you! I've saved you a tin of lemon drops, so don't be late!_

Severus stopped. He was fairly sure the first two lines made little to no sense, but he decided to carry on courageously.

_This year, I have decided to ignore your request to be Defense Teacher. I have found someone for the job slot that I am just delighted with, and I cannot wait for you and the rest of the staff to meet him. Also, you keep forgetting to send me your birth certificate. Just because you sent it to me once and I made multiple copies to reassure the staff, does not mean you are exempt from that part of the application in subsequent years. Your short essay segment was also the same as last year's, and again you went over the word limit by several pages. It does not speak to me, as I cannot relate to wanting to be a dark wizard with mysterious power, and/or to the logistics of slicing things open. (the part about hating beards was interesting though…I wonder if there is any symbolism in that piece? You mention long white ones in particular). Once again, however, I regrettably have to say that this career path would undoubtedly bring out the worst in you. _

_ Try again next year, or take a break, which would probably be best for both of us, and any endangered beards. Meanwhile, I suggest once again that you enlist in some light (or super-intensive, shock-powered) therapy, and I look forward to seeing you again in a mere day. _

_ Travel safely, Severus!_

_ Albus Percival Brian Wulfric Dumbledore_

Severus stared at the letter for a good solid minute, before crumpling it up to make it look more authentic and sticking it on his rejection board. He stepped back and looked at it for a while, before stepping back in and underlining the word SOMEDAY, which stood out in bold at the top of the board. Then he went back to trying to budge the stuck zipper on his suitcase, while wondering when Dumbledore would realize he was growing incredibly predictable.

That night, Severus remembered that he'd already packed his nightshirt in his suitcase, and feared that if he opened it again he would never be able to close it. He then had to face the decision of whether to sleep in the nude or to keep his clothes on. His sheets were stale enough so that it didn't matter either way; he kept forgetting to take them to the Laundromat every summer, and when he returned he kept finding new spots on the sheets. He ultimately decided to sleep in his clothes so that he wouldn't have to worry about getting dressed the next morning, but mostly because his room had a cracked mirror in it, and there were few things Severus hated more than having to see himself naked, even through one blur-eye. He crunched into his stale biscuit, which turned out to be five stale pieces of ham stuck together, and fell asleep wishing he had some firewhiskey to wash it down with, or, alternatively, a toothbrush.


	4. in which staff meetings become steadily

Severus went to King's Cross Station early the next morning, making sure to get there at 9 sharp. However, since his train schedule had changed at the last moment, and the train was now departing at 8 sharp, there was really no point in that at all. Some old man who breathed too loud sat next to him on a gum-besodden bench and remarked how Severus looked like one of the weird people from the 8 o' clock train, who had disappeared through a barrier at the last moment. Severus took a moment to digest this tidbit, and then realized that it meant he would be coming to Hogwarts later than expected.

Going back to his house, Severus tried out plan B for this pain in the ass operation, which was essentially to get on his broom and try to fly to Hogwarts. This did not make him feel a-ok, considering that Severus's broomophobia from years past was still alive and well as ever. Trying to swallow his impending panic attack, Severus searched around his house for his broom, but it was nowhere to be found.

"This is absurd," he muttered, breathing a most frustrated breath out his nose. It was then that he remembered he'd donated his broom to the We Care a Whole Lot foundation last year. Except Severus did not actually Care a Whole Lot, and the only reason he'd donated that thing in the first place was that he thought he would never have a reason to use it again.

Severus made himself a cup of peas, took one bite and grimaced. He looked at the expiration date and then threw it in the trash at lightning speed. One of his windows was left open and he could hear someone's television playing The Swan Princess. His stomach started feeling funny again and he bent out the window just in time.

It was approximately o' dark thirty when Severus arrived at Hogwarts. He had had to take the Knight Bus, and when the when the weird shriveled head next to the driver said it was "GOING TO BE A BUUUUMPY ride!" it wasn't kidding. Severus threw up two more times and had to hold onto a bed railing, concentrating on whether or not that shriveled head was canon or not to keep from passing out. Once an old lady brushed unnecessarily close past him, talking very loudly about how she forgot the last item on her grocery list. He wondered if she'd ever heard of classroom voices.

When the bus reached Hogsmeade, the driver informed Severus that actually, the Knight Bus wasn't authorized on school property, which Severus thought was a real dumb rule. He let Severus off next to that lame tavern Madame Rosmerta, who was far too into low cut tops for her own good, owned. He walked the rest of way with a cramp in his stomach, pretending he had pneumonia.

When Severus reached the weird school he always forgot the name of, he started to stomp up the path, but cut to walking on the grass, since the sound the pebbles made under his feet was making him feel a little faint. He reached the solid oaken doors of the castle and passed through them, pretending he was a cripple hobbling towards sanctuary, like he thought he remembered in some movie about a hunchback he'd never finished watching.

"Wait!" said a muffled voice behind him, and Severus turned to see Hagrid blunder at astonishing speed through the door on his heels, nearly knocking him down in his rush across the courtyard. He mumbled something through his beard about holding the door, panting hard on his way up the steps on his way indoors. Severus really had no clue what that was about, since the door had been propped open for them. He wondered for the fiftieth time what the purpose of a gamekeeper actually was, and if they were straining funds keeping that guy here. You might think Severus was being a bit stingy here, but really, the first place those funds were coming from was his own salary, which he knew for a fact Dumbledore took from when he wanted school reforms or something from the snack machine.

The first person Severus ran into was Professor McGonagall, who honked a too-loud greeting at him.

"Severus, I did not see you on the teacher's train this morning!" she hollered. Severus knew for a fact that she did not know what a classroom voice was.

"I missed the train, Minerva," he mumbled, trying to scoot around her, but McGonagall tried to scoot around him at the same moment, so they did that thing where you look like you're dancing in the hall for two minutes, which Severus felt made him look like a darn fool.

"Staff meeting is down here!" Flitwick chortled at them, passing by on their left. He was clearly using his goblin heritage to act superior about his sense of direction.

McGonagall gave Severus a brief smirky smile which clearly told him, I was going the right way and you weren't, but Severus ignored that in favor of the sinking sensation in his already fast dying stomach.

"There is a staff meeting today?"

"There's a staff meeting at the beginning of every year, Severus," Flitwick, who Severus swore should have been out of earshot by now, put in.

"Yes," he said rather acidly, "BUT…I thought it would be over by now. Seeing as I am late and all."

A raucous bit of laughter sounded from down the hall. It sounded unmistakably like Dumbledore.

"Severus, you know what they say. It's not over until the fat lady sings!" said the Headmaster, still clean out of sight, proving that he'd been eavesdropping on their entire conversation. With a clear case of the cranks, Severus began to walk towards the door he heard Dumbledore's voice coming from. McGonagall walked behind him counting off school supplies under her breath and occasionally stepping too close to Severus's heel. Once his shoe almost fell off from that and while he stumbled to get back into it, McGonagall bypassed him and went into the staff room. Professor Sinistra, who he suspected had never taught a class, came up behind him and also passed, closing the door behind her. Severus finally got his pain in the ass shoe back on his foot and went to open the door. It was locked. He knocked at it rather more violently than was necessary. When it opened a second later, he found himself staring into Dumbledore's beard, which was statically attracted to his robes.

Severus backed away. The beard followed.

"Why don't you come in, Severus?" Dumbledore said, and he moved forward, forcing Severus to cut a wide berth around the beard and bolt to a seat before he could close the distance. Dumbledore merely looked at him all twinkle-ish. His beard was back flat against his chest.

"Well now," Dumbledore began, after a space of fifteen minutes in which he pretended to be doing some last-minute paperwork up against the wall as an excuse to polish off the last of a can of lemon drops. "This year at school, I'm not going to introduce any changes, because I think we can all agree that last year went exceedingly well."

Severus stared at him through slitted eyes, but Dumbledore was looking at every chair but his. In the chair in front of Severus, Professor Trelawney was rocking back and forth. Every time she went too far to the left, he couldn't see Dumbledore anymore. He tried to scoot his low armchair to the side, but it was too heavy and made a GONK sound. Professor Binns jumped and went through the ceiling.

"I would ask what you have all been up to over the summer" (Professor Sprout raised her hand. She had a Caribbean postcard in her lap.) "but we only have time for one story. This summer, I tried out some new margaritas and ironed my beard. There. Now, down to business." Dumbledore started walking between all of their chairs, passing out some hefty looking packets.

"These are the staff rules and regulations. Even though I haven't changed any of them since Professor Dippet wrote them, I want us all to refresh our memories."

He then decided to employ the popcorn method to give everyone a chance to read out loud. Severus hated the popcorn method because it made him feel tense. McGonagall called on him once and he jumped and then read a sentence and passed it on to Professor Vector, who complained about how he'd only read one line.

"Read the whole thing, Severus," Dumbledore said, so Severus had to read a whole dumb paragraph. After that, people kept reading only a sentence and then popcorning him, but Dumbledore didn't say anything, so Severus got real steamed and started reading his paragraphs way too fast and angry. At the end, his mouth was very dry and McGonagall was shaking her head two seats down from him. Dumbledore had spaced out on something in the corner.

The door to the staff room broke open at that instant, and someone stumbled through. The someone was had sickeningly blonde curls that Severus mostly thought of as Macaroni Hair, and his robes looked like someone had thrown up cotton candy all over him. The whole staff room waited with bated breath to have this new form of madness explained to them. It took Dumbledore a while to register the intrusion.

"Gilderoy!" he exclaimed suddenly. "It's so good that you were able to make it! Would you mind fixing the door for us?"

The Macaroni Head turned to the door and mumbled some words that sounded like "Deathly Door Delapidum!", which was totally not a spell. The door, predictably, remained unfixed. Dumbledore chuckled.

"Never mind for now," he said, sounding curiously grandfatherly. "Why don't you introduce yourself to the rest of the staff?" He gestured around at them all, and then pointed at the Macaroni Head. "This is Gilderoy Lockhart, and he will be bravely taking on the cursed Defense Against the Dark Arts position this year," he announced grandly, doing all the work for the Macaroni Head, who just smiled way too big around at them all. Two things struck Severus just then. One, that he was sure Dumbledore wasn't supposed to announce that the Defense job was cursed out loud like that, and two, that the Macaroni Head's teeth were like the fake ones illustrators liked to make clowns have, and reminded Severus of the smell of dentist gloves. He'd only been to a dentist once, and it was not a pleasing experience. They'd told him he had 'a lot of work to do', and made him schedule two billion other appointments. Severus never came back. He'd only gone in the first place because Dumbledore had given him a gift certificate.

The Macaroni Head had been blabbering something about himself for a while now, and now he stopped to do a strange dance in the middle of the room, kicking up his legs real high as he did so and lifting up his robes to dangerous heights. Severus gave his back a what the hell look.

"And THAT'S the Irish Jig!" the Macaroni Head told them, before taking a load of books out of his single pocket and passing them around to everyone, advertising 'free autographs!' in each one. Severus waited until the end of the staff meeting and went up to Dumbledore to ask him whether he was serious about this and/or whether he could see the Macaroni Head's application papers, but as soon as the meeting ended, Dumbledore made a beeline for the broken door and ran through that shambles all the way back to his office. Severus noticed he wasn't wearing shoes, and thought he should be more careful of splinters, because really. He was getting really annoyed with today in general and wanted to give the Macaroni Head a piece of his mind. After nearly everyone else had left, he marched up to that guy and stared him lividly in the face.

"I don't know what you're up to, Lockhart," Severus snarled, " But I happen to doubt your criteria."

The Macaroni Head looked unperturbed. "I know ten zillion spells, you know," he said, winking at Severus like they had a conspiracy between them and filling up a Dixie cup to the very brim with water from the gurgle machine no one used.

"Right," breathed Severus. "Then perhaps you can fix that door for me."

The Macaroni Head put his water on the counter and went to the bathroom. He never came back, even though Severus waited in the staff room for him for thirty minutes. He thought he rather should have expected something fishy, in hindsight, and when he came back to his chambers, his legs hurt and his bed smelled like mold because the house elves had forgotten the dungeons were also rooms and didn't change the sheets.

**a/n: please review if you liked! : )**


	5. sorting, flying cars, and the worst tree

**a/n: just a disclaimer before this one starts up: some of the lines in here that characters say are not mine, since this story parallels the book as far as events go ;) Don't sue me.**

The next day was Sorting, which Severus was less than substantially excited about.

Sometime in the afternoon of this accursed day, someone tried to stuff a copy of the Evening Prophet under his door and gave up halfway. Severus stood close to his door and listened for breathing, then opened it after counting to five mississippis to make sure whoever it was had left. The Prophet made a ripping noise, still caught under the door, and he had to yank the thing out. The headline blared something about FLYING FORD ANGLIA MYSTIFIES MUGGLES. Severus stared at it, then turned, went inside and chucked the weird news on his desk. Then he took some pepto because his insides felt squirmy and tried to take a nap, but kept sweating too much and thrashing on his sheets, one of which he swore had a house elf pee stain on it.

Much later that evening, Severus made his way down to the Great Hall for the Sorting, his stomach making rumble noises. To distract himself on the way, he sung that weird sisters song that was seriously stuck in his head real silent. When he got to the verses, he mumbled a bunch of random noises since he didn't actually know the words, and then belted out the chorus one more time. Whenever someone passed him, Severus canned it and waited until they were a safe distance away to start up his engines again, so to speak. Except soon a lot of people started passing him, and he kept having to start the chorus over, so he stopped that activity, all grumpy-like. McGonagall scooted up next to him.

"All ready for a new year, Severus?" she chuckled at him.

Severus nodded, trying not to look encouraging.

"I can't wait for the new first years to come walking through the doors," she honked, shaking her head and looking awkwardly stern for someone who claimed to be excited.

"That makes one of us," Severus muttered at her, then beelined it for the Great Hall before she could say anything else. He wondered whether it would be better to just take a large bathroom break, since his insides were getting more threatening with every step and Severus had a fear of throwing up in public.

The Great Hall was crammed with students second through seventh years, all making such a ruckus that Severus's headache came back full force. All the tables looked crammed and he thought maybe they shouldn't have invited any first years to clog this place up even more, though he imagined it was a lot of tears and drama to explain that no one would be a wizard that year.

Severus planned to ask Dumbledore for a hall pass or whatever, but when he got to the Headmaster, Dumbledore was too busy cackling outrageously loud at one of Flitwick's jokes, which were actually never funny.

"Excuse me," he said, standing across the staff table from them. Dumbledore's face was red and it looked like he would choke on his appetizer biscuit.

"We're talking, here, Snape," Flitwick said, pushing back a little from the table angrily. Severus saw a joke book open on his lap.

"Now, now," Dumbledore scolded no one in particular and wiped his eyes with a strangled hoot, apparently forgetting he had glasses and knocking them into Trelawney's porridge in the process. "Severus needs to do grounds duty tonight, Filius, so I'm sure he's going to do that in a minute."

Severus stared at Dumbledore blankly. Dumbledore stared back in the regular twinkly fashion, not giving him any clues here.

"My robes are aquamarine!" The Macaroni Head bleated, quite out of the blue.

"Praytell, what is grounds duty?" Severus finally ground out, feeling generally pissy at this whole dumb situation.

"I just made it up," said Dumbledore, still smiling at him. "Didn't you see the schedule?"

"Schedule?"

Severus turned to where Dumbledore was pointing and saw a piece of looseleaf paper stapled crookedly to the door of the Great Hall. He was sure that hadn't been there when he came in.

"I put it up just a minute ago," Dumbledore went on. He then raised his voice a little higher and stared around the staff table. "It is the responsibility of ALL staff members to check the schedule every night."

Professor Sprout nodded, looking in firm agreement. Severus didn't remember asking for her opinion.

"If it wasn't up there until—

"Severus, please," said Dumbledore. Professor Sprout was still nodding.

"Fine," he breathed out his nose, feeling his stomach give another rumble. "What exactly _is_ grounds duty then?"

Dumbledore chortled, though Severus couldn't see what was so funny about that. Flitwick cracked the hell up and at first Severus got really pissy until he realized Flitwick was staring down at his book, cracking up in anticipation of his next joke.

"You go out on the grounds, Severus, and make sure that all the first years get in all right. Then I want you to see if you can find Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. They do not seem to have arrived on the school train today, and I would like to set my mind at ease that they are not lost. I am hoping they are with Hagrid, or else I shall have to contact their respective homes, and I don't want any parents getting worried."

Severus digested this juicy-strange bit of news, then turned to face the Gryffindor table. Sure enough, Potter-the-stupidly-unpredictable and his crusty cohort The Weasley were nowhere to be found. Their only other friend, the Bush Hair, was sitting lonesomely in her seat and gnawing a bread roll through her tears.

Actually, Severus couldn't see any tears, but he just assumed for the sake of the image.

"Ah," he said. "In that case, I will…"

But he couldn't say anything more, because the urge was strong upon him. Severus bolted for the door to the Great Hall once more, trying not to look at all the students he felt like were staring at him, and came out into the courtyard, where he promptly heaved up his last meal, whatever and whenever the hell _that_ had been.

After he straightened up, Severus checked that no one had observed him and noticed how it was about one degree Fahrenheit out here. He heard noises coming from somewhere across the grounds and saw Hagrid bringing the first years across the lake. Severus always wondered why that had to happen, since they could just cut around it and save a lot of time.

Hagrid finally lumbered ashore and nearly hit a kid in the face with his lantern. He led them past where Severus stood next to his frozen barf and began to let them inside, not noticing Severus. His coat was ridiculously large and made Severus jealous, since his one moderately heavy cloak was still lying woefully in his room. Potter-the-missing-in-attendance and his ginger friend were very clearly not with Hagrid, so Severus didn't know what further purpose he had here. Dumbledore said to make sure all the first years got inside, but that was a really dumb idea since how was Severus supposed to know how many first years there were in the first place? Maybe Dumbledore didn't trust Hagrid.

Hagrid led the last of the students in the door and then closed it and turned to go back to his hut. Severus had spontaneously decided to stay hidden and did just that, pretending he was a refugee on the run and pushing himself into a shadowy corner of the courtyard.

Hagrid paused and seemed to stare at something on the ground, and too late Severus realized it was his own puke. Severus thought he was caught, but Hagrid leaned down and scraped a sample of it, muttering to himself about unicorns. He went away really fast, leaving Severus alone in the cold once more. Severus was just about to call it quits when he heard a loud ruckus of rumble-bang sounds coming from somewhere around the other side of the school. He decided not to check it out, and leaned against the courtyard wall, feeling dizzy again. He thought that maybe Potter-who-doesn't-get-basic-concepts hadn't realized that summer was over, or better yet, maybe he had decided just not to come back at all. Two spells wouldn't get the kid very far in life anyway, and Severus was genuinely sure he'd passed his learning capacity. The Weasley, who Severus was sure had never had a learning capacity to begin with, was following along in the way robot supplements tended to do.

Severus was just about giddy at the thought of no Potter-who-everyone's-obsessed-with back at school, and when his stomach rumbled the next time, it wasn't because he needed to upchuck. Severus realized he was hungry, and also realized that he hadn't eaten at all this day. Severus turned to go inside before he got frostbite here, and he had almost reached the door when he heard voices coming around the school towards him. Severus froze and watched in horror as Potter-who-shows-up-at-the-worst-times and The Weasley rounded the bend. Severus freaked out and ran around the other side of the castle from them, in order to sneak attack from a better angle. He'd forgotten how large the castle actually was, because he walked a long distance, stopping to dry-heave occasionally , and to worry that when he reached the other side, Potter-the-dilemma-maker wouldn't be there anymore. Severus passed the Whomping Willow on the way around. It was making hurt sounds and thrashing wildly at nothing. A bunch of broken branches lay on the ground next to it.

Severus didn't ask. He had bad experiences with that dumb tree in the past, and had once asked Dumbledore if he could just cut the thing down already like George Washington did with that cherry tree once, but Dumbledore told him that the Whomping Willow was valuable since he'd won it from a daily raffle on his favorite radio station two billion years ago. Of course, it turned out that Dumbledore was hiding a werewolf under that tree when Severus was in school, something that Severus found out the hard way. Severus gave the tree a hard look when he passed it, wondering if it was causing so much commotion because once again, there was a werewolf under there, when it all came together for him.

Potter-the-genuinely-insane was still there when Severus came around the other side of the school. He and The Weasley were really lagging here. They were just staring in the window to the Great Hall and talking in loud volumes about something. Severus edged closer and heard his name.

"…Where's Snape?" Potter-the-inappropriately-nosy asked.

"Maybe he's ill!" The Weasley said. Severus thought it was the only time he'd heard The Weasley guess correctly at anything. His stomach flip-flopped at him, but he moved closer. Potter-the-gossip-spreader was talking about how he'd probably left since he couldn't get the Defense job again, which really steamed Severus up, since where the hell had he even heard that Severus applied every year?

"Or he might have been sacked!" The Weasley screamed, "I mean, everyone hates him—

"Or maybe," Severus butted in quickly, deciding that he'd had quite enough of that, "he's waiting to hear why you two didn't arrive on the school train."

The Weasley and Potter-the-extremely-nosy ceased their smack talk and turned around at a rate of something something milliseconds. Severus almost burst out laughing at their faces. He wished he had a camera or something.

"Follow me," he smirked at them, trying to move his hand to point inside. Unfortunately, his hand was not responding to any orders this late in the game, so Severus was kind of glad they couldn't see that. He led those total assholes into the entrance hall, where it smelled like a bunch of really good stuff which Severus guessed he would not be eating sometime this century. His stomach made a hollow, despairing noise, which was luckily muffled by the sound of his feet on the dungeon stairs, and then shut up for good.

When Severus reached his office, he moved his still-quite-numb dud hand to open the door and pointed inside. Potter-the-total-joy-suck and The Weasley were standing quite a ways behind, looking mopey.

"In!" he snapped at them, pointing. They took roughly half an hour to do so, and his arm started to ache because for some dumb reason he didn't stop pointing. When they finally pulled their dumb selves into his office, Severus closed the door and glared in their general direction. They were both shivering exaggeratedly. _You don't know the meaning of cold! _he thought in a dramatic soap opera star voice, before deciding he was getting sidetracked.

"So," he said, "the train isn't good enough for the famous Harry Potter and his faithful sidekick Weasley. Wanted to arrive with a _bang_, did we, boys?"

"No sir, it was the barrier at King's Cross, it— The Weasley began, but Severus shushed him. Apparently he didn't know a rhetorical question when he heard one.

"What have you done with the car?" Severus asked them, before either of them could yammer obnoxiously again. When neither of them said anything, he walked to his desk and picked up his ripped Evening Prophet, unrolling it and giving them a good view of whatever the heck picture was even on the front.

"You were seen," he hissed at them before turning the paper over and actually reading what it had to say on the subject. About halfway through, he realized that The Weasley's father was a ministry worker and this would be Oh-So-Bad for him, so he decided why not throw that into the mix for the horror of it? Sure enough, the Weasley didn't seem to have thought of anyone but himself until that very moment, because he was looking nauseous. Potter-who-can't-actually-relate pretended to by looking sickened. Severus thought this was starting to get very promising.

"I noticed, in my search of the park, that considerable damage seems to have been done to a very valuable Whomping Willow," Severus continued, not mentioning that this was probably for the best and he sincerely hoped that damn tree died.

The Weasley began to blabber again about how the tree had damaged him and Potter-the-curiously-silent, which Severus didn't even get because with the exception of some lame cut over The Weasley's eye, they looked fine to him.

"Silence!" he snapped at the Weasley, feeling like a broken record. He told them that unfortunately he couldn't expel them but if they sat tight, he would go get the people who could and that would be that. Then he slipped out the door and locked it behind him.

Severus stood in the hall grinning and then walked up the stairs again to the Great Hall. The feast was still in full swing. Humming the Weird Sisters smash hit again under his breath, he tried not to skip up to the staff table. Dumbledore was still laughing his ass off over something Flitwick had said, and Flitwick was panicking because a pea had gone down the wrong pipe and his joke book was being eaten by Mrs. Norris. Severus decided to turn to Professor McGonagall first.

"Minerva," he said, not failing to notice how good the beef steak McGonagall was chowing down on smelled, "It so happens that Potter and Weasley have flown an enchanted car into the Whomping Willow. I trust you will expel them for this."

McGonagall stood up really quick and stared all dignified at Severus over her glasses.

"What is it, Minerva?" Dumbledore asked, between gusts of laughter. Severus told him the whole story again, hoping they would hurry it up here before he died of anticipation.

"I knew it," Dumbledore said. "As soon as I saw that article about the car in the paper, I knew it was Harry." He sounded oddly proud. "Well, I just need to hear one more joke from Filius, here."

Dumbledore turned to a panicked Flitwick, who nearly screamed a knock knock joke at him, and Severus led McGonagall back to his office, thinking about why the hell Dumbledore sent him on that wild goose chase if he knew where those kids were all along.

When they got there, Severus was expecting things would run smoothly, but instead McGonagall just honked at those duncecap boys to explain, which Severus didn't think was entirely necessary since hadn't he just explained it all to her, and so where was the trust in staff relationships? She also lit a fire in Severus's fireplace, which Severus didn't remember asking her to do. He stared at the flames in fear for a second, afraid Lucius's head would pop up at any minute.

The Weasley blabbed and blabbed about how he and Potter-the-astonishingly-numb couldn't get through the King's Cross barrier and so that meant they had to use an enchanted car.

"Why didn't you send us a letter by owl?" McGonagall asked them. "I believe _you_ have an owl?" she directed to Potter-who-definitely-had-an-owl. Severus made a light snort sound in agreement. McGonagall gave him a weird glance out of the corner of her eye.

Potter-with-no-linguistic-skills stuttered about how he didn't think bla blab bla.

"That is obvious," McGonagall said, and Severus felt like crowing with delight but felt like it would be inappropriate at this juncture. Instead, he stared fixedly at the Evening Prophet, pretending to read it. A knock sounded on the door, and he turned around and opened it real quick. It was Dumbledore. Severus tried to mouth what was happening at him, but he just kept standing there and staring at Potter-in-serious-trouble.

"Please explain why you did this," he said. Severus made a groan in his head. This was only the billionth time he would have to listen to this dry story. He flipped a page in the Prophet and frowned at nothing in particular, as Potter-the-suddenly-verbose gave some really long shame-story Severus doubted was one hundred percent accurate. He left out all the trash-talking he and the Weasley had done behind Severus's back, but Severus was so not going to be the crybaby one to mention that.

"We'll go and get our stuff," moaned The Weasley, trying for reverse psychology.

"What are you talking about Weasley?" honked McGonagall, making Severus almost drop his paper.

"Well, you're expelling us, aren't you?" The Weasley kept trying.

"Not today, Mr. Weasley," Dumbledore suddenly said. Severus did drop his paper this time. No one noticed. Dumbledore blabbed on and on about how serious their crimes were, which, please, what was the point since they weren't even being punished except for Dumbledore writing to their families which was a big whoop-de-doo.

"Eh hem," Severus said, cutting in before this nonsense could go any farther. "Professor Dumbledore, these boys have flouted the Decree for the Restriction of Underage Wizardry, caused serious damage to an old and valuable tree—surely acts of this nature—

"It will be for Professor McGonagall to decide on these boys' punishments, Severus," Dumbledore interrupted him. "They are in her House and are therefore her responsibility."

Severus decided he had no consistency, since didn't he supposedly think the Whomping Willow was the best gift he'd ever received? Once Severus had cut one of its branches off for a potions ingredient and he'd hollered so loud Severus had an earache for a month.

"I must go back to the feast, Minerva, I've got to give out a few notices," Dumbledore continued. Severus's ears felt fuzzy. "Come Severus, there's a delicious looking custard tart I want to sample."

Severus glared at Potter-who-had-probably-already-got-away-with-murder-and-no-one-knew and The Weasley, and left his own office to those miscreants. He followed Dumbledore, who was humming under his breath, thinking how he didn't even like custard and feeling absurdly teary. Stupidly, the Weird Sisters tune was still playing in the back of his head, which made him want to cry more. When they got back up to the feast, Dumbledore passed around one notice which was a piece of construction paper with a diagram of a unicorn on it. Severus was too full of angst to even ask. Then they sat at the staff table where Professor Trelawney kept staring at him and Professor Sprout kept bugging him about "what happened in there" while he picked at a hard cinnamon roll. Dumbledore was devouring about fifty custard tarts next to him.


	6. in which teaching commences

**a/n: hey, so, none of this belongs to me, blablabla. Thanks for the great feedback to those who have reviewed, and to any who haven't, please tell me what you think! Enjoy :) **

Severus woke up the next morning on very very far edge of his bed. Upon realizing that, he flailed about, attempting to untangle his sheets and shift to the middle once more, but his alarm went off and made him jump about a mile, so that is how Severus ended up on the dungeon floor, thrashing to the Leprechaun Shuffle, the top hit on the billboards that week.

From the angle he'd fallen into, Severus could see a piece of lint and two tic tacs under his bed, which was weird since he'd never bought tic tacs in his life. He'd read in Witch Weekly once that they gave you breast cancer, and he was so not risking that. Plus, sometimes students cracked the orange kind open in class, giving Severus a blaring headache.

Speaking of blaring headaches, Severus had one that morning. He crawled around his bed to his nightstand, pretending he had a serious impairment and couldn't get up, and kerfuffled around for his Advil jar. Didn't kerfuffling have to do with commotion?

Severus took three Advil stuck together, which almost lodged in his throat, and he had to make cack sounds to dislodge it. We wondered what gives, since the dungeons had absolutely no moisture content in the air the last time he checked.

Since he had nothing else to do that morning, he went to talk dehumidifiers with Dumbledore, who had five in his office. He'd seen them last time he was there, curiously all arranged around Fawke's perch. He wondered if that was so Fawkes could make phoenix fire, and thought it was a whole lot of grief to go through for one dumb pet. Dumbledore must have heard his thoughts though, since he got real scary after that and harped about lesson plans and how Severus never filled out the "hopes for the children" part. Severus had always assumed that was optional, since hello, this school was not called Kids Kare. What _was_ this school called? He thought on it as he left the office.

Severus had had some Bob the Builder types install a new gargoyle sink over the summer, since the old one was leaking and smelled like sewage. He'd ordered a gargoyle with a scarier face than the one before, and when he went to look at it he nearly got a heart attack from that thing. There was a puddle of sewage on the floor next to the new heart attack gargoyle. Severus frowned at it, swore a few times, and then pretended the water was a lake he needed to pass through to make it to his desk. Only in retrospect, he wished he hadn't done that, since his shoes had a million holes in them and his feet smelled weird for roughly forever after.

Severus romped around the classroom like mad, straightening desks and screaming a weird sister's tune. The dungeon door made a creak sound and he jumped about a foot, falling into a desk before glaring like mad at the intruder.

"Hello!" screamed the Macaroni Head, very unaware of the danger he was in. He thrust some books Severus didn't remember asking for onto a desk as he strode into the classroom, and sat on a chair Severus had just pushed in. Severus glared at him stormily, but the Macaroni Head was taking a vacation in lala land.

"Those books are for free, you know," he said, smiling way too big at Severus, who said nothing. The Macaroni Head got up and twirled around on the seat, raising one foot into the air and pointing his toes.

"THAT'S ballet!" he exclaimed, winking at Severus and sitting back down as suddenly as he'd gotten up. Severus stared at the guy. His lips were getting very tight feeling.

"I was thinking about a dueling club," the Macaroni Head began, completely changing the subject.

"GET. OUT," Severus said through his tight lips. His voice sounded dull and mufflish to him which made him almost crack up, so he pressed his lips harder together and peered at the Macaroni Head through squinted eyes. The Macaroni Head made a good decision for once and decided to skedaddle. Severus let out a choked cackle after he left and then shut the door and glue gunned the thing shut. The books the Macaroni Head had left on his desk were all vandalized with about a billion signatures. The top one had the Macaroni Head's grinning face on it, which kept moving and winking at him. It said MAGICAL ME! in big letters. Severus flipped through the books quickly. The last one was called YEAR WITH A YETI! which made Severus have a silent laugh attack. He threw them in his We Recycle Because We Care bag, which Professor Sprout had mistakenly left in his office when she was videotaping him to try and make a case for firing him three years ago. Severus thought that was a bunch of foolishness, since one of the first steps of being a successful spy was to cover up one's tracks, so maybe he deserved that recycle bag.

Severus belted out the rest of the weird sister tune and walked around the dungeon stapling diagrams of disgusting potions ingredients to the walls. He stapled his finger and abruptly stopped singing. His eyes got teary for a minute and his finger throbbed throbbingly. Severus limped to Madame Pomfrey's office when he found he couldn't dislodge the magically inserted staple and had to wait behind a serene Flitwick who said he thought he had the common cold.

"Only you should not be in the hospital wing for that," Severus scoffed at him, "Everyone gets the cold. What do you need, for Poppy to confirm that you have it?"

Flitwick just gave him a very dirty look and did a fake cough. Severus called him on it. Flitwick said something about Ravenclaw and the house cup, which was completely off the point, and looked like he was going to throw a tantrum, when Madame Pomfrey came out of her office and saw them standing there. She talked to Flitwick and felt his chest and then gave him some fruity medicine. Severus wondered if he got special treatment for being short.

Flitwick gave Severus a look as he left that seemed to suggest he thought Severus should be jealous of him. Severus ignored him and mouthed something in which the only real words were "house cup" at him. He got enraged and sped out of the hospital wing. Severus thought about what the hell this house cup thing could mean.

Madame Pomfrey was making a bed at the moment, and Severus stood there for a while, waiting for her to finish that job up, but as soon as Madame Pomfrey was done with one bed, she went on to the next one.

And the next. And the next. And the next. When Madame Pomfrey started to pull the sheets off of a bed that was already perfectly made, Severus decided enough was enough.

"Ah," he began. Poppy stared up at him through squinted eyes.

"I have a floo call to make, Severus," she said, edging toward her office.

Severus held up his stapled finger, feeling kind of dumb.

"Might you have some—

Poppy sprinted to her office and closed the door. Severus stared after that insane lady for a good minute before trailing over to the door and listening hard. He heard a bunch of things bumping around and what he thought was a toilet flushing, but there wasn't a whole lot of commotion after that. There was definitely no sound of anyone talking, so Severus used deductive reasoning to figure that there was actually no floo meeting so he was effectively wasting his time here. He tried to call angrily to Poppy through the door, but loud music that sounded like techno started blasting every time he started to talk, and he got sick of that real fast. Severus sat there for a while and then tried to rub the staple off of his finger onto the door, but that hurt way too much, so he tried to pull it out with his teeth, but his several snaggle-teeth kept getting in the way of that activity, so he left.

Before Severus swept out of the hospital wing, he decided to leave Poppy a disgruntled note on the door, but it took him a while to find a bent quill in his pocket, and when he started to write, Poppy spontaneously yelled something about the Quidditch cup and he made a scribble about a mile long. Snorting in disgust, Severus felt his staple finger pounding and threw his failed note in the trash before leaving.

He was going to walk down to the Great Hall for some cinnamon toast or something when he remembered he had his first class of the year in exactly .06 minutes.

Severus sprinted so hard upon that realization that he got that feeling in his throat where it was burny and cold. Pretending he was an asthma victim with a war wound, Severus bolted through the halls until he came to a part where there were still students walking around. Severus frowned at that; like, how come they weren't in class, because he was pretty sure the schedules had been printed perfectly clear except for that smudged set Professor Sprout tried to make. That was when Severus realized that everyone in the hall was a Slytherin, and remembered that he actually hadn't given Slytherin House its schedules that morning. Several of the students in the hall turned to stare at him when he entered their sight range, edging towards him and making Severus think of cattle, yammering on about what class should they go to and where did he leave the schedules?

Severus snapped at them to check the notice board in the Slytherin Common room, and then told some particularly persistent sixth years to go to Care of Magical Creatures, since he figured Hagrid wouldn't know the difference. Then he made his way down the dungeon stairs in a cold sweat, feeling like his staple finger was going to drop off, so they better just amputate him here like one of those teenagerish types in war movies.

When Severus got to his classroom door, the fifth year Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws were all gathered around something in the hallway. Severus pushed through them and looked at whatever the hell they were so interested in. Someone had left a Pantene bottle in front of Severus's door. Severus picked it up. Some kids behind him laughed. He gave them all a five hour detention on Saturday. The shampoo blared that it was for "extra oily hair!". There was a note stuck on the bottle that read, "Severus, this should give you the lu(s)ci(o)us locks you've always been looking for!" Severus didn't need a rocket scientist to tell him who sent that.

"Sir, uh, who did you give detention to?" a voice asked from behind him.

Severus didn't want to turn around because he couldn't tell what color his face was at the moment. Instead, he just stormed through the door to his classroom and threw the Pantene bottle in the recycle bag, which was getting quite a workout.

Class that day left Severus with an extreme desire to take Prozac. Lots of people kept giggling and since he didn't know what that suspicious business was about, he decided to give everyone detentions, just to be safe. On the way out, Severus handed everyone an assignment that wasn't actually in the book just to give them a piece of his mind. Some Hufflepuff kid couldn't even look at him without cracking up to his squashed-face friend, and oh please, like Severus couldn't see that. Severus wrote him down in his black book under his People to Get When They're Least Expecting It list, and then went into his private chambers and pulled the staple out of his finger manually, which made him pass out.


End file.
